HRV lacrosse suffers first defeat

HOOD RIVER — If there was one quarter all season that the Hood River Valley lacrosse team would like to take back, it would be last Friday’s second quarter against Lincoln.

Down 1-0 after one period of play, the Eagles allowed the Cardinals to score five goals in the second frame to take a 6-0 lead into halftime.

And even though the Eagles rebounded to play a spirited third quarter, they know why they ended up losing their first game of the season, 9-4.

“We went through a semi-paralysis in the second quarter,” said senior attacker David Voigt. “We just couldn’t get it going for some reason.”

The Eagles (7-1, 2-1 Columbia Division) managed to get within four midway through the third quarter on two goals by Paul Spaulding and one by Chris Riedl.

After Lincoln scored at the 2:33 mark to make it 8-3, Terry Sanders found Casey Vannet with 35 seconds left to make it 8-4 after three.

The fourth quarter was as even as the first, as Lincoln tacked on an insurance goal with 4:47 remaining. But the bottom line for the Eagles was that if they could have prevented Lincoln’s second-quarter flurry, the game would have been tied.

“It was really hard for us to come back after that run in the second quarter,” said Riedl, a senior attacker. “We played OK in the third, but overall we were pretty disappointed.”

Riedl added that Lincoln’s suffocating defense made it difficult for HRV to run its motion offense. But he also felt like the Eagles didn’t do enough to overcome the Cardinals’ pressure.

“We slowed down way too much,” he said. “They were really quick on ‘D’ and they closed in on us better than any team we’ve faced so far.”

Added teammate Zach Bohince: “We were too afraid to lose the game, and we played tentative.”

After facing a team like Lincoln, the HRV players now realize what they must do to compete for the Columbia East Division championship. They also know that, from this point forward, they can’t take a second off.

“If anything good came out of this loss, it’s that we don’t want this to happen again,” Voigt said. “This has become a rallying cry for us, and we know that every game counts from here on out.”

The Eagles hosted Riverdale on Tuesday (results NA), and will play another formidable league foe, Wilson (3-1 league, 6-2 overall), on Friday. HRV’s next five games are at home, but they must finish the season with Lincoln, OES and Grant on the road.